Yearly Archives: 2013

Pig Progress Dec 2, 2013. South Korea’s first outbreak of Classical Swine Fever (CSF) in four years has led to the culling of a herd of 300 pigs, reports the Organization of Animal Health (OIE). The previous outbreak dated from April 2009, the OIE states. This time the outbreak was confirmed at a rearing farm in Siran-dong, in the province Gyeongsangnam-do, on the south coast of the Korean peninsula. The infection was discovered on November 27 – one day later the OIE was informed. In total, four out of 300 pigs were found infected and as a result, all pigs were destroyed.The location of the outbreak can be seen on the interactive map included in the OIE report.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 Dec 2013. Australia is facing an egg shortage ahead of the peak holiday season after an outbreak of bird flu shut down two poultry farms. About 450,000 chickens have been destroyed at a free range and caged egg farm in Young, NSW, creating a national shortfall, which will cause prices to rise and take six to 12 months to abate. The virus is not the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, which has killed humans, nor is it closely related, the NSW Department of Primary Industries said. But it has significantly dented supply and put pressure on prices.

Melbourne-based Farm Pride Foods, which is one of Australia’s biggest egg processors, has had to cancel orders, with its sales plunging between 8 and 9 per cent compared with the same time last year. NSW Farmers Association Egg Committee chair Bede Burke said demand for eggs normally doubled in the week before Christmas ‘‘but this year the eggs won’t be there’’. ‘‘The comfort level for eggs in NSW is about 1.4 million dozen to fill the cool rooms at the end of the week. We are well under that now, down about 15 per cent,’’ Mr Burke said.

‘‘What it means is … retailers might not have 600 gram free range packs, or 800 gram caged eggs. They might still have eggs but not exactly in that same category. So consumers might have to switch from the normal egg they buy to another brand or category to get through that period.’’ Mr Burke said the shortage had already created a lift in farm gate prices, which have risen 10 cents a dozen. He said that would filter through to retailers. The outbreak was detected in late October at the Langfield Pastoral Company, about 27 kilometres north-east of Young in south-west NSW. Mr Burke said the farm was a ‘‘world class facility’’ and an outbreak of an exotic disease is something all farmers feared, particularly as more birds become free to roam. It is understood the virus originated at the property’s free range farm and soon spread to its neighbouring caged farm.

Farm Pride sales and marketing manager Ian Savenake said Langfield supplied between 3 and 4 per cent of the national market. He said the stock in Farm Pride’s cool room in Melbourne had dwindled significantly. ‘‘I probably have a day’s worth of fridge at the moment tops, whereas this time last year we had five days’ worth of stock so it’s going to be a tighter Christmas,’’ Mr Savenake said. ‘‘There’s quite a lift in demand with just people baking and entertaining. But we are cutting orders at the moment. We just can’t supply everyone’s order in full.’’ The DPI has quarantined both farms, which will remain shut for several weeks. Mr Savenake said it would take some time for the farms to repopulate their stock, because they couldn’t replace the 450,000 chickens all at once. ‘‘Normally you stagger 50,000 every month, so I’m guessing at least six to 12 months, depending on how quickly they can buy the day old chicks.’’

In a statement the DPI said the NSW Food Authority confirmed that there no food safety issues and poultry and eggs remained safe to eat. NSW chief veterinary officer Ian Roth said it appeared the virus had been confined to the two properties. ‘‘There is no indication that the virus has spread beyond the two properties, and the DPI is working with the owners to recommence operations,’’ Dr Roth said. A Woolworths spokeswoman said: “Customers in NSW and Victoria may notice some gaps in egg supply in stores. We have been working with our suppliers to maintain supply and minimise any impact on customers”.

“The EU Legislators did not fully consider what impacts the banning of conventional cages would have on the future development of egg production and the resulting egg deficit.” With this quote of Professor Hans Windhorst underlined in an interview with Terry Evans (ThePoultrySite, 2009) what he had predicted during his presentation at the ISAH meeting in St. Malo, France in 2004.

Given the ongoing discussions on cage systems in othe parts of the word, Professor Windhorst expert opinion (although expressed in 2009) is still extremely interesting.

He pointed out that the switch from conventional cages to enriched cages, floor management or free-range systems would inevitably lead to higher production costs. Economists at Wageningen University in the Netherlands have shown that production costs in enriched cages would increase by some eight per cent over those of conventional cages. In the German small colony system, the extra costs would be of the order of 10 per cent, while switching to the barn system in the Netherlands would result in costs rising by 21 per cent.

“On the cost of switching away from conventional cages, an investment as high as €6.1 billion would be required. In Germany alone, some €612 million would be needed to meet the existing legal regulations by the end of 2009.”

He believes that it is not realistic to assume that this capital would be available under present financial and economic conditions, and he wonders how the EU would react when the member countries failed to fulfil the requirements of the Directive.

He observed that it was obvious that legislators in the EU as well as at the country level in Germany did not fully consider what impacts the banning of conventional cages would have on the future development of egg production and the resulting egg deficit.

Because German retailers would not stock eggs from the small colony system, large egg producers in that country realised that they would not be able to switch to floor management systems by the end of 2009.

This would result in “Financial losses for production companies, higher consumer prices and increasing imports of shell eggs and egg products,” Professor Windhorst concluded in his interview with ThePoultrySite in 2009.

A new bird flu strain called H6N1 has infected its first human. Taiwanese researchers are reporting the new bird flu appeared in a 20-year-old woman from central Taiwan. The woman had been working in a delicatessen before she began experiencing flu-like symptoms and shortness of breath. She was then hospitalized in May 2013.

She has since fully recovered following treatment with antiviral drugs. The woman had not traveled abroad three months prior to the infection, and she said she had not been in close contact with poultry or wild birds. Interviews with 36 relatives and friends of the woman found no other cases of H6N1. Researchers say the source of her infection remains unknown.

Vets make ethical decisions all the time so need to know about ethics in order to make them well. There are arguments for granting animals some form of moral worth. There are various ethical theories which attempt to address the issues of animals and their treatment. Perhaps the most difficult question raised in animal ethics is when is it acceptable to kill animals?

Contemporary animal agriculture is increasingly criticized on ethical grounds. Consequently, current policy and legislative discussions have become highly controversial as decision makers attempt to reconcile concerns about the impacts of animal production on animal welfare, the environment, and on the efficacy of antibiotics required to ensure human health with demands for abundant, affordable, safe food.

Clearly, the broad implications for US animal agriculture of what appears to be a burgeoning movement relative to ethical food production must be understood by animal agriculture stakeholders. The potential effects of such developments on animal agricultural practices, corporate marketing strategies, and public perceptions of the ethics of animal production must also be clarified.

To that end, it is essential to acknowledge that people’s beliefs about which food production practices are appropriate are tied to diverse, latent value systems. Thus, relying solely on scientific information as a means to resolve current debates about animal agriculture is unlikely to be effective.

The problem is compounded when scientific information is used inappropriately or strategically to advance a political agenda. Examples of the interface between science and ethics in regards to addressing currently contentious aspects of food animal production (animal welfare, antimicrobial use, and impacts of animal production practices on the environment) are reviewed.

The roles of scientists and science in public debates about animal agricultural practices are also examined. It is suggested that scientists have a duty to contribute to the development of sound policy by providing clear and objectively presented information, by clarifying misinterpretations of science, and by recognizing the differences between presenting data vs. promoting their own value judgments in regard to how and which data should be used to establish policy.

Finally, the role of the media in shaping public opinions on key issues pertaining to animal agriculture is also discussed.

The Diplomate online, November 7, 2013, by Tyler Roney. On Tuesday, a three-year-old boy was diagnosed with the dreaded H7N9 bird flu in Guangdong Province in southern China, and some are warning that more cases are on the way as the temperature drops. Previous bouts of flu hysteria and panic resulted in nothing more than small outbreaks; as such, there is little reason to believe that these most recent warnings will be any different. However, in many ways, the H7N9 problem is China-specific, which has allowed it to flex its scientific muscles.

Last month saw serious advances on the H7N9 front, with China’s contributions outpacing many other nations, in no small part because China is on the front lines of bird flu outbreaks. In fact, China announced a vaccine for the H7N9 bird flu virus late last month. This is an impressive feat considering that they only started research on the vaccine in April when they isolated the H7N9 virus via a throat swab from an infected patient. So far, the vaccine has been successful on ferrets, which can spread the virus via respiratory droplets—a discovery also made by Chinese scientists.

All but one of this year’s cases of H7N9 have been in mainland China (the other was next door in Taiwan), so China has a unique interest in stamping out the virus. As of the end of October, the National Health and Family Planning Commission confirmed 136 cases and 45 fatalities from the deadly bird flu strain. While that may seem a small sum, it means the virus has a 33.1 percent fatality rate. China is treating this disease seriously and is devoting ample resources to what it considers to be a potential pandemic. True or not, it’s an excellent example of the world’s newest research powerhouse.

With that in mind, the muscle and money that China puts into virology is being backed by brains and innovation. In fact, it’s no longer just China’s response and control measures that are making a difference; it’s research bravado. British newspaper The Independent published a scathing report in May of this year on China’s intentionally-mutated super flu strains—strains that can be used to better understand and prepare for outbreaks.

It was an understandable response to the end of an international moratorium on such research, and claims were made elsewhere that China didn’t have the biosecurity chops to keep the research in the lab. However, critics such as Lord May of Oxford, who accused China’s researchers of “appalling responsibility,” may soon find that China is well on its way to a new level of viral defense. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the risk is worth preventing a pandemic; many others agree.

Making reassortants via plasmid-based reverse genetics is a method used around the world, but foreign newspapers mainly reported one thing: that China is purposely creating super bugs to wipe out mankind. True, Chinese scientists were and are creating super bugs, particularly hybrids of H5N1 and H1N1 viruses, they were doing so to learn more about them.

For all the bluster, this research method is yielding serious results—not to mention vaccines. And, with China trailblazing its way out of bird flu frenzy, one wonders what else the Middle Kingdom can do with its newly-found scientific might.

Death caused by hyperthermia. This questionable method has been developed as a last resort option in case of a large-scale outbreak of High Pathogen Avian Influenza in the UK. Even in EU Regulation EU 1099/2009 there is room for countries to use this kind of methods, when compliance is likely to affect human health or significantly slow down the process of eradication of a disease. (EU 1099/2009; article 18, under 3).

Hyperthermia means that the cause of death is overheating the shed of the birds. The normal core body (CB) temperature of a bird must remain within a narrow range around a mean value of 41.4°C if its welfare is to be safeguarded.

If the core body temperature rises above 45°C most poultry will die quickly. To ensure VSD is effective the temperature in the house must rise to 40°C or greater and remain at that level. Maintaining a relative humidity of at least 75% will help speed the onset of death through hyperthermia.

This DEFRA document provides procedures and instructions on using Ventilation Shutdown (VSD) as an emergency method of killing of poultry for disease control purposes.

As China continues to battle an outbreak of avian influenza A (H7N9), a team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine are among those looking for ways to intervene and bring an end to a disease that has so far killed more than 20 percent of those it has infected. The university team, led by Michael Caffrey, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at IUC, has found a common food additive that can block a strain of the avian influenza virus from infecting healthy cells. They are now reporting this new discovery in a published paper in the online journal PLoS ONE.